Page 7 of Saint Nick
Her chest ached. Not from pity—she knew better than to give him that—but from the quiet, raw way he asked her to the Christmas party that even he didn’t want to go to. She recognized that kind of ache. It was the kind that didn’t fade. It just changed shape over time.
His breath hitched when she nodded her agreement. She was sure that he didn’t mean for her to hear it, but she had. It was a tiny fracture in the wall he seemed to keep around himself, and she was thankful that he was letting her see behind it. “I’d like that,” she admitted.
“Okay,” he breathed, not seeming to know what to say next. “I’ll text you the information. Would you be able to meet me at the club? I don’t think that the kids would understand if Santa showed up with some woman who wasn’t Mrs. Claus.”
“Just text me the details, and I’ll be there,” she promised. Sandy chanced a look outside, noticing how the Christmas lights twinkled in the cold night. A few hours ago, she mightnot have even noticed them, but now, they seemed extra bright against the night sky. When the check came, Nick paid before she could argue. He just slid his card onto the tray with quiet finality. Sandy followed him out of the diner, the bell above the door chiming as the cold air wrapped around them.
The night smelled like snow—clean, crisp, and sharp against her cheeks. A few people hurried down the sidewalk with bags and scarves wrapped around their flushed faces, laughing like the world was lighter this time of year. Sandy shoved her hands into her coat pockets, still feeling the ghost of his hand against hers from earlier. Nick walked beside her, not saying anything. But the silence wasn’t awkward. It was almost comfortable. A strange, new kind of quiet she hadn’t realized she’d been craving.
“I didn’t scare you off with all that, did I?” she asked finally, forcing a little laugh as she glanced at him.
His mouth curved into a sexy smirk. “Takes more than a Christmas story to scare me.”
She laughed softly, her breath turning to fog in the air. “Good to know.” They stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. The streetlights cast a soft amber glow over the snow-dusted pavement, and for a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Nick shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and tilted his head toward her. “You’ve got a way of getting under people’s skin, you know that?”
Sandy lifted a brow. “Is that a compliment or a warning?”
“Maybe both,” he said, and this time, there was a faint spark of something in his voice. Something she hadn’t heard from him before.
She didn’t push for more. Not tonight. It wasn’t about getting a story anymore. It was about the tiny shift she’d seenin his eyes when the lights outside didn’t look quite so much like the enemy.
“I can give you a ride back to the Road Reapers,” he offered. The thought of getting back on his bike after the temperature had dropped made her shiver.
“Thank you, but when you were paying the bill, I requested an Uber. She nodded at the Toyota Camry that had just pulled into the lot. “That’s him,” she said.
“So, you don’t want to take another spin on the old death machine?” he teased.
“Not in this cold air,” she said, wrapping her arms around her body. “Thank you for dinner,” she breathed. Sandy started for the Uber, and just before she got into the car, she turned back to find Nick watching her. “Goodnight, Nick,” she said softly.
“Night, Sandy,” he breathed.
As she turned and slid into the car, she couldn’t stop the small, unexpected smile that tugged at her lips. For the first time since she’d left home, the cold didn’t feel so heavy—and neither did the loneliness.
Later that night, she sat by her fireplace, trying to keep the cold that had seemed to settle into the night at bay. She was in her Christmas pajamas that her mother had given her their last Christmas together and was wrapped in her favorite quilt. Sandy wasn’t sure if she was ever going to get used to the winters in her new hometown, but she was sure she was going to give it a try.
Sandy had rewritten the opening paragraph of her story three times already, and it still sounded wrong. No matter howshe phrased it, she couldn’t capture what she’d seen in Nick’s eyes that night at Maggie’s Diner. It was something between loneliness and defiance, a man who’d forgotten how to hope but couldn’t quite give up on it either.
She leaned back on her couch, her laptop balanced on her knees, and sighed. The glow from the Christmas tree she’d put up in her tiny house had cast soft golden light across the living room. It made the space feel less empty, though she’d never admit that to anyone.
Her editor’s voice echoed in her head. “Make it personal, Sandy. The readers want a reason to care about this guy being Santa.” Yeah, she thought wryly, personal was exactly what she was trying to avoid with Nick. She’d come to this little town to escape emotions, not dive headfirst into them—especially not over a brooding biker who looked like he’d rather punch a snowman than build one.
The knock at her door startled her. It was past ten, and she wasn’t expecting anyone. She hesitated for a moment, her heart thudding in her chest. Then she peeked out the front window—and nearly stopped breathing. Nick stood on her porch, the porch light catching the snowflakes in his dark hair. He had one hand stuffed into his jacket pocket and the other holding a paper bag.
Sandy stood from the sofa, tossing the quilt down before crossing the small living room to open the door, the December air biting her skin. “Nick? What are you doing here?”
He gave a small shrug. “You left your scarf at the diner. Maggie found it and called me, and since I was in the area, I picked it up and figured I’d drop it off to you.” Her red scarf dangled from his fingers, but the small takeout bag in his other hand wasn’t from the diner, and it piqued her curiosity.
“And the bag?” she asked.
He looked almost sheepish. “Figured you didn’t finish your dinner during our interview, so I picked up some pie from the bakery just down the road from my house. They had one left.”
“You brought me pie?” she said softly.
“Don’t make it sound like a damn Hallmark movie,” he muttered, but there was a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked before she could stop herself.
